The Rotary Club of Ringwood, one of the 51 clubs within Rotary District 9810 and part of Rotary International, meets each Wednesday evening at the Ringwood Club on the corner of Oban Road and Maroondah Highway.

Tonight’s meeting discussed council’s recycling program and the importance of correctly utilising the recycling bins that are provided. Victoria produces 9.5 million tonnes of waste per annum, with 5.07 million tonnes being recycled. Waste that is not recycled ends up in landfills and detrimentally impacts the environment.

Maroondah produces 53,167 tonnes of waste on an annual basis, with 12,932 tonnes being recycled using a mixture of hand and mechanical sorting. Maroondah provides a green waste bin and a blue recyclable bin for glass, cartons, paper and plastics. Contamination of these bins, that is where materials that cannot be recycled are placed in these bins, means that up to 20% of Maroondah’s waste in unnecessarily diverted to landfill.

Recycled waste cannot be contaminated with other waste as this means that the entire load cannot be re-used and instead must go into landfill. The major source of contamination is from plastic bags, which cannot be stored in either the green waste bin or the blue recyclable bin. The Maroondah garbage trucks have a 350 bin capacity. This means that even if one bin has inappropriate contents it can cause the entire contents of the truck to be diverted to landfill instead of being recycled.

Recycling minimises resource usage and improves our sustainability. Examples of recycled products include the new street furniture along the Mullum and Eastlink trails and the wheelie bins themselves.

It is great to see the Rotary Club of Ringwood involved in environmental issues and recycling. It is important that our community is able to correctly recycle waste and minimise our impact on the environment.